@arlobooth
Brayden sits quietly in Arlo’s car as he stares out of the window and watches the signs pass. He doesn’t know why he’s in the car in the first place. An invitation to a funeral is one of the last things he would ever accept, because he’s just not the type of person you bring to those type of things. You’re supposed to bring friends to a funeral, someone you can rely on when you can’t keep it together--or at least that’s what he thinks is supposed to happen. He hasn’t been to one himself.
When Arlo asked him over text to come with him, he didn’t respond for a long time. He was originally going to respond with a firm no, but something stopped him. Brayden learned very quickly that it isn’t easy to say no to Arlo. He has a way of getting under his skin and making him do things he wouldn’t usually do...like look for aliens. Aliens is one thing though, watching him mourn his dad is another. It’s a red flag that screams he’s getting to close, and he should tell Arlo to take him back now, but he says nothing.
He looks at Arlo from the side of his eye before averting his gaze back to the road, thinking about Bee’s face when he told her what he was up to. He’s allowed to leave her house obviously, but when he headed for the door with a duffle bag it looked a little suspicious.
“I’m going to Connecticut with Arlo. Something about his dad’s ashes,” He had told her. Her expression changed quickly from concerned to...something else. Knowing, maybe. She didn’t say anything, except for, “I’ll see you when you get back.”
After a couple of more minutes of silence, he finally looks over at Arlo, trying to figure out what to say. If they’re going to be in the car together for 12 hours, he should probably say something. “Why’d you ask me?” He decides. “You have friends on the team. I see you with them.”